2022-05-21: A Song as a Connection
- Log: 2022-05-21 A Song as a Connection
- Cast: Sheryl Nome, Brera Sterne, Ranka Lee
- Where: Frontier Fleet
- OOC - IC Date: May 21, UC 0096 (2022)
- Summary: After a certain black-tie event, Sheryl and Brera talk about Aimo, what it means to him, and what he means to her.
<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
For Sheryl Nome, it's been a lovely night. She showed off a beautiful dress, she had interesting chats with a variety of people, she had several wholly enjoyable dances, she had some delicious food and drink, and she gave generously to a well-deserving cause. Granted, most of the people around her had less-great nights--Alto and Brera had to dance with each other (at her insistence), Ranka got bullied across the room by some woman, Grace excused herself early to sit in the car, and even Gayanti panicked and ran away before their conversation was fully done--but Ranka also cheered up as she danced with her, so it wasn't a total loss either.
For now, Sheryl's tired but satisfied. After the party was over, she and Grace and her bodyguards returned to the Tenchu Orbital Ladder and went up to the Orbital Ring to a hotel near the La Tour Orbital Ladder in Central Africa, Africa being the continent where her tour currently is. She hopes there isn't a need for another backtrack to another part of the world. Earth isn't as vast as space, but you can't really fold-travel on it, either.
Currently, she's soaking in a huge tub centered in a bathroom that's the size of the average apartment. The bubbles that cover the water's surface hide her nude body from sight, but a bath is still a bath, so for tonight, her guard is Brera. She has him standing nearby, his back to her, to guard--without peeping, naturally. But she doesn't get the vibe from him that he would be interested in peeping, or she wouldn't have him in here in the first place.
That, and there's something private she wanted to talk to him about. And what's more private than a bubble bath?
"I really don't understand the problem you two have with each other," she remarks as she stretches a leg up. "Didn't you and Alto only just meet, what, a week or two ago?" Maybe a little longer than that, but it's close enough. The point is that surely they haven't known each other to justify this headbutting. They hardly danced at all with each other. ...Never mind that Sheryl wasn't even paying attention at the time.
<Pose Tracker> Brera Sterne has posed.
Brera would not speak of the night with the same fondness. Brera would not, unprompted, speak of the night. There are questions within it. Concerns, maybe. Things to be immediately cast aside and forgotten as needless noise. Or try to. Thorns of it nag in the back of his mind still. Ranka and Alto. Itchy knives.
No. It's foolishness.
In what would ordinarily be boring, but perhaps reassuring under the circumstances, Brera has the same reaction to being asked to guard Sheryl in this scenario as he does anything else: absolutely nothing going on in his face, and quite possibly nothing going on in his head outside his calculations and concerns for a successful mission.
There's a delay when he's asked to turn around, but he complies, having learned it is easier not to argue on the matter even when he doesn't understand the problem. If something goes wrong, it will be more difficult to react. Inconvenient.
But he's skilled enough to compensate for that.
"Yes," Brera affirms of his recent meeting with Alto, and then he pauses. He doesn't like these questions. His head feels heavier trying to find answers. "...His attention is not where it should be."
<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
That *is* one thing about Brera that Sheryl likes: he might be kind of a robot, emotionally speaking (and maybe physically speaking, but Sheryl has known Grace too long to think of him that way), but he doesn't try to backtalk her when she asks him to do things. She appreciates the professionalism there.
"Hmmm? His attention isn't where it should be? Where exactly should it be, Brera?" Sheryl drawls, smooth as a snake nosing its way through a silk dress. She leans on the edge of the claw bathtub, raising an eyebrow at him even though his back is to her and he'd better not be able to see it. "Because when we were on the dance floor, your attention seemed to wander away from me a couple of times, and I'm your client. If you're saying Alto isn't paying enough attention to me--not that you're wrong there," she adds under her breath, "then what's your excuse?"
She doesn't really know where she's going with this. But it's something she noticed, and it's something that bothers her for reasons beyond the superficial, even if she can't quite put her finger on why. Putting Brera on the spot, making him explain himself, might well help her figure out her own feelings.
...It's not really a move that makes sense unless one considers that Sheryl does genuinely want to get to know Brera himself better, too. After all... he's a fellow refugee from Galaxy. As much of a stony front he puts up... surely he must understand something of what she feels.
<Pose Tracker> Brera Sterne has posed.
"On his mission."
A simple answer, but Sheryl is already way ahead of him.
Each of Sheryl's words needles into something Brera cannot define. His head hurts. Once simple calculations feel like they're running through static caltrops. She is, of course, correct. Brera's attention has been compromised. The harmonica around his neck (something he was too eager to put back on once the party was over) is cold and sharp.
It's several moments of silence -- too long for a standard pause in conversation -- before Brera relents with an unsatisfactory answer.
"I don't know."
<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
On his mission. Exactly. But Sheryl knew that already--that's why she asked what she did. She's willing to wait for him to figure out his answer, though the longer-than-normal pause is far from her favorite; by the time he actually says something, she's slipped her arms back into the tub to cup fragrant water in her hands and pour them over her face, neck, and shoulders. She's already washed herself--this is just to relax in hot, bubbly water--but she'd rather not duck her head underwater and risk missing a reply.
"It's not something a professional should be doing. You know that, or else you wouldn't be giving Alto a hard time about the same thing you're doing," Sheryl says archly. "What has you so fascinated, anyway, that you'd look away from someone like me?"
It's a rhetorical question. Rather, it's a question Sheryl already has the answer to. But she wants to be certain of it. She wants him to say it.
She wants to know what she should be annoyed at.
<Pose Tracker> Brera Sterne has posed.
With Brera's back to her, there's no way for her to read his face. This is about the same experience she would get looking at it, however: beyond the subtle twinges of it trying, and failing, to accomplish a face's intended purpose, there is not much to see.
It is a poor reflection of what's happening inside him, for once. Noise. Static. A thick fog of thoughts. Two magnets with the same poles facing one another.
"...That girl..." he murmurs, as if only to himself, as if Sheryl has once again ceased to exist the way everything else ceases to exist when his thoughts stray to Ranka. No. The opposite. Everything exists so suddenly, so loudly, that it's blinding.
But why?
<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
"Brera. Brera. Brera," Sheryl repeats insistently. She reaches out a hand and snaps her fingers several times, as if doing so might break her bodyguard out of the mental morass in which he's situated himself.
'That girl.' That girl indeed. Obviously he's got an interest in Ranka--Sheryl's not blind--but it really is annoying to have both of her bodyguards more interested in Ranka than in her. Who do they think they're protecting here?
(And if Ranka were in danger, wouldn't she want them to protect her? Didn't she tell Brera to do exactly that when Ranka had fallen off that kaiju almost to her death? For a moment, Sheryl averts her eyes, her heart in turmoil. But then she frowns and glares at Brera's back.
"How long have you known her, anyway? She came in with Alto and you the day we were all introduced. She's from Frontier and you're from Galaxy, like me. How long ago could you have possibly met?" she says a little too evenly for it to be a demand. The spirit of a demand is certainly there, though.
<Pose Tracker> Brera Sterne has posed.
Sheryl can say Brera's name and snap as much as she likes, but it does not seem to have an effect. In both of their defenses, it would not receive much a reaction even if Brera were not troubled over the matter of why Ranka is of any interest to him.
He does not like being asked these questions. He does not like that he does not readily have the answers, as if each response has to be dragged through the mud instead of coming easily to his mind for a clear, defined purpose to complete a task.
What will any of these questions and their answers do for him? Yet he is reluctant to push any of it aside.
"We had encountered one another before that," he says, distantly stating facts.
"...She was singing."
He actually moves instead of remaining stone still, and though Sheryl cannot see him from the front, it's not hard to gather the only accessory of interest he could be fiddling with is the harmonica he wears around his neck.
<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
That's not much of a defense, but that's okay. Sheryl really shouldn't be snapping her fingers and calling Brera like he's a dog. (Perhaps there's something puppy-like about him...?)
One other encounter, where Ranka was singing. Sheryl frowns as she folds her arms on the edge of the tub and leans her chin on them. It's true Ranka has a sweet voice, but if it's just a matter of singing, she can do that more than well enough. But then she notices him reaching up to his chest and messing with something there. Doesn't he wear a harmonica on a chain around his neck...? She's been wondering about that, so she lifts her chin and rests it on one hand instead.
"What kind of song was it?" she prompts.
<Pose Tracker> Brera Sterne has posed.
"That's..."
Brera hesitates. He releases his harmonica, letting it dangle back around his neck. A song. All he has. Ranka has it. Why does Ranka have the song? But she doesn't know why she has it any more than Brera knows why he does.
There's a siren of danger rattling in his skull. No memory data, but the knowledge that's instinctively, undeniably true: no one is supposed to know about this song. No one must know about Ranka's song. ... Is it Ranka's song?
Why doesn't he know?
"...That's a secret," he says.
<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
"Oh, really."
There might be a siren of danger rattling in Brera's skull, but now there's another one growling in Sheryl's throat, shading her eyes as her eyelashes dip low. With a soft splish, she leans forward and reaches for something hanging in the pocket of an actual silk robe hanging from a wooden pole not far from the tub. That something turns out to be something that looks like a taiyaki with a green orb dangling from the tail. It looks like that, but it's actually a sophisticated high-tech phone popular in the Macross fleets. She squeezes it, and not unlike the Sanshoo-san Ranka has, it brings up a holographic screen.
"Call: Ranka," she commands, then hums as the connection dial tones. When it connects, she says brightly, "Hiii! Ranka, I know it's late and you must be tired, so I'll make this quick. What was the song you were singing when you met Brera?"
She smiles sweetly at Brera's back, as if daring him to stop her from spilling his secrets all over the floor like the bubbles from her bath.
<Pose Tracker> Brera Sterne has posed.
The alarm that runs through Brera is enough to make him turn around -- and doing so isn't going to spark any reason why he's not supposed to be on his end -- with a sudden panic in his eyes, brief as it is.
"Wait --"
Wait for what? Ranka can sing if she wishes. She can share her song if she wishes. This also feels intrinsically true. But why is Aimo at once so precious and so dangerous...?
What is it, why does he have it?
<Pose Tracker> Ranka Lee has posed.
Ranka was actually in her Hippo Cow Kigu pajamas, winding down for the night when Osanshoo-san leaps off her shoulder. Surprised to see Sheryl calling her, she squishes it immediately to answer the call. "Sheryl!" Pause, "No, no- it's alright..." However what she asks for has her stunned. "Wait... that?" There's a pause and then, "It's a song I've wanted to share with you. Just... it was a matter of timing. I have a hard time singing it... where just anyone can hear."
It's no big deal, sharing the name with Sheryl, she tells herself, "It's called Aimo." Alone in her hotel room other than Sheryl on the phone, she walks over to the viewport in her Orbital Elevator room. The blue of the Earth, shrouded in white, with hints of green beyond meets her vision, upon a curve that vanishes into the black horizon of space. It's a beautiful enough sight that she takes a breath, and says, "I guess can share a little over the phone... if you don't mind waiting for the whole thing."
"Aimo aimo nedel lushe
"Noina miria endel prodea
"Photomi."
"Here we are in a warm sea: look up and breathe."
Afterwards she finishes she lapses into silence over the phone, perhaps waiting to hear Sheryl's response.
<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
It's really fascinating how much stoic Brera cares about this--enough to turn around, enough to try to tell her to stop, enough to have an expression of panic of all things (even if it only lasted for an instant). Sheryl holds her taiyaki phone up high and back over her head in case he tries to grab for it, her eyes locked on his, but he doesn't go that far, at least. All the same, both of them can hear Ranka crystal clear as she responds, then sings a beautiful verse.
That song that she'd said meant so much to her... that she wanted to wait until it was the right time and place... And the song itself is stunning, even moreso from her clean, smooth voice. It's enough to give Sheryl the shivers. She lowers her hand. She can kind of understand why Brera was so invested in keeping it a secret... She hadn't known it was that song. It makes her feel a little jealous, even, that Brera got to hear this song that's so special to Ranka before she did. Not understanding why, she shoves that feeling to the back of her mind.
"It's really... mysterious, somehow," she murmurs at length, now lowering her eyes. "Thank you. You're right; it'd be better to wait for a better time and place for the whole thing." She pauses a beat; when she speaks again, a nonchalant tone has asserted itself. "Anyway, I was just curious. Brera and I were talking about it a little, but he was scarce on the details, so I thought I'd just ask you directly. Thanks so much~! Talk to you later, all right? G'night!"
Once Ranka bids her good night back, Sheryl hangs out. With a little sigh, she hangs her hand over the edge of the tub. "All right," she concedes. "I can understand why you would've wanted to keep it to yourself. I do feel bad about digging now. But that's just something you'll have to learn about me," Sheryl adds with sudden firmness. "You can't just tell me something like 'that's a secret' and expect me to shrug and go, 'oh, okay'!" She reaches out a finger, the rest of her hand wrapped haphazardly around her phone, in an attempt to poke Brera in the nose. She may or may not be close enough to pull it off. "I happen to have a vested interest in you, Brera!"
<Pose Tracker> Brera Sterne has posed.
For Brera, it is not the panic of embarrassment. It's a life-or-death sort of panic. A panic that is far too extreme for the situation to be appropriate, but also easy to misread on a face that does not know settings past subdued.
But Ranka's voice has Brera's attention caught. His face goes blank from his concerns, offguard more than empty. Phones do, in fact, exist, Brera. Sheryl utilizes them. This is not strange. The way people connect and speak is a little strange. The way Ranka wants to share her song, and can, and does.
His gaze goes distant when Ranka's singing it. He grips his harmonica again, running his thumb along the cover plate. Brera thinks the lyrics as Ranka sings them, and for a moment, all he knows he is, is all he has to be.
It's comforting, even from a phone.
Then it's over, and Brera takes another moment to come back to reality.
"Understood," he replies, as blankly as ever. It is an important piece of data if he wants to navigate the storm that is Sheryl Nome. Brera needs to understand the patterns of Sheryl as much as the patterns of the situations she's within. That's not something he fully appreciated until now.
Brera stoically endures being booped on the nose, though his eyes do cross.
"...Why? You only need to know that I will protect you."
<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
Panic is panic. It's there and gone too fast for Sheryl to make out that kind of nuance, especially on a face that's normally set to stony neutral.
But Ranka's song isn't over so quickly. It's slow, and soft, and soothing. Not unlike being in a warm sea... Sheryl does avert her eyes, but before she does, she sees Brera grip his harmonica, see his eyes fix on somewhere in the distance, see his attention catch and then float off into another world. It comes back only once the song is over. It's at that point that Sheryl looks away.
But she looks back in time. Brera lets her boop him, and asks his own question. She smiles; any interest is good interest, even if it's only because he's too confused to understand her interest.
"And how am I supposed to trust that if you're letting yourself get distracted by the next cute thing that crosses your path? Honestly! If I'd known what a skirt-chaser you were, I never would've let Grace hire you!" she fake-huffs. After a moment of letting the complaint hang, she winks, grins, and adds, "Just kidding~. Ranka really is cute, though, isn't she? I can understand why she'd melt the heart of a serious military man like you..." She leans her cheek on her free hand and lets her phone-holding hand hang over the side of the tub. "But this isn't really about Ranka. I was interested in you before that." She pauses a beat to let the question reform; then she clarifies, "Because you're from Galaxy. Like me."
She waits a beat or two more. She has a hunch that might not really explain things as far as Brera's concerned. So once he digests that, she adds, "What was it like for you, living there? Did you have any friends? Any family?" Her gaze softens. "...As a fellow refugee, I want to know."
<Pose Tracker> Brera Sterne has posed.
Brera's eyes uncross to refocus on Sheryl's face. They do not stray, which could be considered good or bad, depending on one's current priorities. "Skirt... chaser?"
These aren't words he understands in that combination.
Then Sheryl calls Ranka cute, and Brera isn't sure he understands the qualifications of cute, or what its presence implies. He has heard fans squealing about the topic. People can be cute. Animals can be cute. Even phones, particularly the ones Ranka and Sheryl have, can be considered cute. Hm.
"She is strange," Brera decides. A pause. "You are also strange."
Sheryl's questions are the strangest part of her. Interest. Wanting to know. A fellow refugee. But they are not a fellow anything, because Brera is not a something. Why ask? Is she lonely? A strange, impulsive thought. Loneliness...
He doesn't have the kind of answers that dispel loneliness.
"...I don't know," he says. "I can't remember."
<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
It's plenty good. Even Alto, someone Sheryl's actively attracted to, isn't allowed to just get an eyeful whenever he wants. (Never mind that if he were in here now, it would be because she specifically wanted him there. That's not the point.) It's a little irritating that he doesn't seem even slightly attracted to her, but to a greater extent, it's nice. His not being attracted to her means that... maybe they can be just friends. If they can get to the point of being friends at all, that is.
She giggles either way when Brera deems both Ranka and her strange. "We've got that special something, she and I. If she can get over her fears and harness that something, she might be as big as me one day," she declares, winking as she holds one finger up. (It's pride that makes her put in that 'might.' Deep down, Sheryl knows that Ranka has the potential to surpass her. But that's not something she wants to acknowledge. Not right now.)
She also doesn't deign to explain what a skirt chaser is. Let Brera wonder. It'll be a fascinating internet search if he decides to commit to one.
Her expression shifts to concern, though, when he admits he doesn't remember. "You don't?" she utters, surprised. How can that be? Surely he has to remember something of Galaxy if he's from there. Maybe he's just being too broad, too literal. Or maybe she's asking the wrong question. "What do you remember, then?" she prompts.
<Pose Tracker> Brera Sterne has posed.
Given the subject in the room is Sheryl Nome, it's highly likely that Brera does not have a concept of attraction at all. Granted, he also does not appear to have a concept of friendship. Maybe the latter idea is at least a learnable one?
Sheryl Nome... he does need to understand her to better protect her. He does not know why she would need to understand him, or what there is she does not understand. Brera Sterne is Brera Sterne. There is nothing else.
"She is... small," Brera agrees in entirely the wrong way. His brow furrows, and he holds his hand out at about Ranka-height, looking all the more concerned. The world is very big, and Ranka is very small.
Sheryl's new question invites another uncomfortable silence. "My purpose. My orders."
If Ranka shared 'Aimo'...
"...A song."
<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
Hope springs eternal! And Sheryl Nome is not the type to give up easily. She'll either wriggle her way into his robot heart or learn something that makes her not want to be friends with him anymore. Who can say which will happen? Either way, for the time being... she's not quite so willing to accept that Brera Sterne is really just Brera Sterne.
When he agrees that Ranka's small and makes it clear with a gesture that he means her height, Sheryl slides him a wry, sideways smile. She doesn't think he gets what she was saying, but she's willing to let that one slide. His literalness is sort of growing on her. It's also cute, in its own way.
That smile fades at his other response, though. His purpose, his orders... and a song.
"...and that's all you remember?" she prompts. "You don't remember anything like... family, or friends, or where you live?"
<Pose Tracker> Brera Sterne has posed.
For someone who works so closely alongside Grace, Brera demonstrates no understanding of idols or the industry of music and stardom. What are fans if not people one must debate throwing to the ground or out a window in the name of security protocol?
But that blank face of Brera's is beginning to give way to forlorn discomfort. His stoicism is not a wall that needs to break. It's a pool, dark and vast, and if there's anything within those waters, they struggle to find the surface and beyond the veil.
"No. I do not remember anyone. Not even my parents."
<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
In fairness to Brera, he is from the military. It makes sense that he wouldn't be all that familiar with Sheryl's world, any more that she's familiar with his--she's just beginning to scratch the surface herself as she learns how to pilot. And even once she does, that doesn't mean she knows military protocol or anything like that. Sheryl is supporting the military, but she's not actually yet a part of it.
But--there, there--the granite in which his handsome features are carved finally shift, subtly, subtly, like the tide washing in to change the stone's color.
He doesn't remember anyone. Not even his parents.
"Oh, Brera..." she murmurs, her expression and her voice aching with sympathy. As much as her own memories of her childhood might tie thorns in her heart, she can't imagine giving them up. It's her struggles that have made her Sheryl Nome. To have lost them however Brera has... it's genuinely horrifying to her. How can you know who you are if you've lost your past?
Sitting up straight, Sheryl commands, "Turn back around." Once he's no longer facing her, she turns on the showerhead and stands to rinse herself off. It's a show of trust that she does this when there's nothing stopping him from peeping. All the same, a moment later, she steps out of the tub onto the luxurious bath rug and grabs a spa-style towel. She gives herself a basic dry, wraps the towel around herself, and slips on the bathrobe hanging on the wooden pole nearby. After that...
She sits next to Brera, facing the opposite way, and lifts her face to sing:
"Aimo, aimo, nedel lushe
"Noina miria endel prodea
"Photomi...
"Here we are in a warm sea: look up and... breathe..."
She turns a confident smile his way. "Your purpose, your orders, and a song," she recites, holding three fingers up one and a time. "Aren't you in luck! You just happen to be guarding the body of Sheryl Nome, the Galactic Fairy and greatest songstress to ever live!" She runs her hand through her damp locks and winks. "It might not be my song, but I'm confident my voice can still help you remember something!" She gives it a beat; then she folds her legs and sweeps her damp locks to one side before criss-crossing her fingers over her knees and raising her nose to the air. "Unless you aren't interested?"
Unless it has to be Ranka, she doesn't say. But if it does have to be Ranka, that might be a big clue all on its own.
<Pose Tracker> Brera Sterne has posed.
And that's exactly why Brera Sterne is Brera Sterne, and no one else. No history. Only a purpose. That's never mattered before. Why now?
There's a tone in Sheryl's voice that Brera does not know how to react to, or what to do with. Should that provoke another emotion? Comfort? Anger? There's too much emptiness for either one of those things to bubble up into anything recognizable. It is what it is. He does not remember.
Thinking the job is continuing as normal, he's commanded to turn and he does. That still seems foolish, but again, better not to fight. Slippery ground of a bathroom is a hazard and unpredictable behavior is an unnecessary risk.
Nothingness begins to reign again, and then Sheryl sings. Brera abruptly looks to her. It's... different. It's not the overflowing blindness. The strange vortex that draws him in when Ranka's voice sings. It does not tug at the darkness and threaten to unearth something he cannot control.
That does not mean it's powerless. It's the second time Sheryl's sang and Brera's truly heard her, which might as well have been one noise among thousands when he monitored her concert until her duet with Ranka. Brera chases the melody, fighting the urge to bring his harmonica to his lips to experience a sense of knowing it -- knowing anything at all. But maybe this is safer. Infuriating in its distance, but less painful. He's a softspoken person, but his next words are even quieter with the small admission: "...I want to remember."
He is interested, in other words, however futile it seems.
<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.
Why now?
Because Sheryl's here now, and she's decided it matters. Who is anyone to tell her differently--even Brera himself?
(Which might be arrogant and self-centered of her, too. But even if her motivations for helping Brera aren't exactly altruistic, she wants to help him all the same.)
Sheryl sings. Brera hears her, for the second time ever. Maybe it would have greater force if it were Ranka singing, but playing a song at a softer volume is indeed safer on the ears. He's already had trouble with tumultuous feelings. This way, perhaps he can suss out the details of what he's lost. More importantly--
'I want to remember,' he admits. Sheryl locks her gaze on him as she smiles.
"Then I'll make sure of it," she declares. "So you better make sure you guard me right!"
It might be an absurd statement. Brera was already going to protect her. But was he really going to be invested in protecting her beyond the fact that it was ordered of him? Either way, to Sheryl, it feels more equal this way--more give-and-take. More like the start of an actual relationship, rather than a pair of professionals simply doing their respective duties. In other circumstances, she'd hardly have minded that, but here...
"For now, though, I'll go easy on you. God knows I've been pestering you with questions all night, and I've still got my beauty regime to finish up for the night," she declares as she reaches for the blow dryer. "When you're ready, just let me know, and we'll figure out where to go from there. Got it?"
'Got it?' she says, like she's giving instructions. But maybe it might be easier for Brera, who only has his mission, his orders, and a song, to follow a strong lead.
<Pose Tracker> Brera Sterne has posed.
Sheryl Nome is indeed a strange person. A strange person with a promise Brera cannot yet grasp the full meaning of, with intentions he cannot follow, and with so many questions he does not have answers to. Wanting isn't the same thing as having, and for now, Brera Sterne is Brera Sterne. Nothing more.
His mission is to guard her. This does not change that, and it is absurd to suggest Brera was not already intending to do this correctly. He elects not to make the clarification if she is one the same page now -- unaware he's in more need of clarification than she is. In time?
Got it? Brera barely shifts his head to one side in a gesture that may not quite match his respond. "...Understood."
It's when he's ready that he may not understand. Maybe it will come to him in the moments when the haze seems to lift and the emptiness begins to stir.
Until then, in the silence, his thoughts tumble the notes fresh in his memory data. Look up... and breathe.